By Kimberly Burnham
A religious person is not to say, “If God wants me to be ill, I will be ill, and if God wants me to recover, God will heal me without medical intervention,” according to the Babylonian Talmud, quoted in the Etz Hayim, a Conservative Jewish Torah and Commentary. The Etz Hayim goes on to say, “Maimonides, a physician as well as a philosopher, wrote, “If a person eats to cure his hunger, do we say that he has abandoned his trust in God? Just as I thank God for providing me with food to sustain life, I thank God for providing me with that which heals my sickness.”
The sages also teach in the Babylonian Talmud: Sanhedrin 17b that one must not live in a city without a physician or a public bath.
These passages were written as commentary to the following Torah verses in Exodus 21:18-19, “When individuals quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or fist so that the injured party, though not dead, is confined to bed, but recovers and walks around outside with the help of a staff, then the assailant shall be free of liability, except to pay for the loss of time, and to arrange for full recovery. “
This brings up several questions:
- What does “full recovery” or cure mean?
- What should we seek as the cure for what ails us?
- Who is a physician?
I have heard people in the autism community say that seeking a cure for autism is horrible, like trying to destroy the special abilities of the person with autism. People in the deaf community also talk about not wanting a cure for deafness, because deafness creates their community and it is deafness that makes them unique and special, rather than disabled.
There are also thousands of people who die of “preventable illnesses.” When a smoker dies of lung cancer it is considered a “preventable illness and death” because we can see time as linear with a clear cause and effect. The smoking leads to the lung cancer, which in turn leads to death. Could the lung cancer have been “cured” by refraining from smoking in the first place, or simply quitting earlier in life? It is a common perspective.
And what should we do with people who refuse medical treatment that someone else feels could save their life? Who gets to say what conditions should be treated and whose treatment is the best?
The Talmud tells us not to expect that, “God will heal without medical intervention,” but what constitutes medical intervention? Are herbs from a naturopath medical intervention? What about acupuncture or massage or Matrix Energetics? Are medications and surgery good forms of medicine? What about Reiki, which is a form of energy medicine and available to patients in over 800 U.S. hospitals?
According to an article in Holistic Nursing Practice, “There is a growing interest among health care providers, especially professional nurses to promote caring-healing approaches in patient care and self-care. Health care environments are places of human caring and holistic nurses are helping to lead the way. The practice of Reiki, as well as other practices, can assist in the creation of this transformative process.”
Other people consider Reiki to be nonsense, or worse, sorcery or magic. What do you think? Who should get to decide what kind of treatment an individual seeks for the care of their own body, mind and spirit or for their child or family member?
What is our obligation and opportunity to heal ourselves and the world?
